


holding the cards

by wildewoman_22



Category: Mad Men
Genre: F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 15:17:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13250964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildewoman_22/pseuds/wildewoman_22
Summary: Joan Holloway is quite possibly the mostobviouswoman she’s ever met in her entire life.





	holding the cards

Jane is nine years old when she has her first boyfriend. His name is Adam Bauer and his family sits three rows behind hers at temple. She tells all of her friends that it’s just so _sad -_ he loves her so much, but his father won’t let him transfer schools to be with her. It’s like something out of Mother’s paperbacks. He’s nice and listens to her and gives her a candy heart on Valentine’s Day, which she proudly displays on her nightstand (if only because her sister Judy is three years older and still doesn’t know a thing about candy hearts, poor thing).

Two weeks after that, she finds out that Adam held hands with some girl named Caroline at his school.

“He’s the worst person ever,” says Jane. “He’s ugly. I hate him and I’m telling everyone how mean he is.”

Her mother frowns, and then smiles. “You’ll catch more flies with honey, dear,” she says. "Trust me."

The next time she goes to temple, she wears her best dress and sneaks some of Mother’s lipstick and even says hello to Adam when she sees him, resulting in a square of paper being pressed into her palm.

It’s covered in hastily drawn sad faces and hearts. Jane straightens her shoulders and tosses her hair and doesn’t look back during the rest of the service, not even once.

 

* * *

 

 

The thing about people, Jane realizes, is how _easy_ they are once you study them enough. A well-placed smile or tilt of the head does wonders. She knows exactly how to hold her cards, making every girl in her junior class feel like they can approach her for advice while admiring her from afar.

She knows that most of these girls study movie stars to try and get the cute boy in science to notice them. Jane watches how her friends stuff their bras with tissue, leaning conspicuously over their desks with their elbows pressed together. She studies how they move, awkward in their sweater sets, and tries to do the exact opposite. She finds herself staring at the lines and slopes of their collarbones, the clumsy attempts at subtle cleavage. She rolls her eyes at them every time.

Jane is in history class when Barbara Smith - the girl with the hugest chest in her grade - makes a show of dropping a pencil in front of Jeremy Gilbert. He notices, of course he notices, and Jane’s sure of this because she notices, too.

 _Some people just don’t understand class,_ she thinks, crossing her legs at the ankle and looking the other way.

 

* * *

 

 

Joan Holloway is quite possibly the most _obvious_ woman she’s ever met in her entire life. “Call me Joan,” she’d cooed on the first morning, a distinct warning in that syrupy voice. _Don’t step on my toes. This is how it is._ Jane thinks she would find her intimidating if it wasn’t so easy to see through how Joan knows the power in the sway of her hips; she’s a monolith, smiling patiently with wolf-sharp teeth at airheaded secretaries who dare upset her perfect order.

“Of course, Miss – I’m sorry, _Joan,”_ Jane had replied, making sure to sound every bit the bumbling, amiable girl Joan had expected her to be.

“I think you’re going to fit right in,” Joan’s red, imposing mouth had said.

“Your décolletage is distracting,” that mouth had said later.

Jane is almost certain that Joan hates her the most. She can feel it. Joan’s voice drips with honeyed contempt as she shows Jane the rock on her finger, knowing how the other girls are seething with jealousy over her and her perfect doctor. She lords her happiness over them, over Jane. _Of course your life is just peachy,_ Jane thinks. _You studied all the movie stars._

Jane is almost certain that she hates Joan right back.

Jane goes out one afternoon halfway into her second month at Sterling Cooper and buys boxes of doughnuts. She offers them up – not taking one for herself, of course, because she’s that selfless – and all the other girls grin at her and stuff their faces and say, “Aren’t you the sweetest thing?”

She’s getting rid of the boxes in the break room at the end of the day when Joan appears in the doorway.

“Mr. Sterling needed to confirm Mr. Draper’s schedule regarding an important client meeting this afternoon, but he apparently had some difficulty,” she says. “Would you happen to know anything about that?”

Jane’s palm aches to slap her.

“I’m sorry, Joan, it’s just that we’ve all had such a hard week here, I just thought-”

“Thought sitting around gorging yourself was more important than your duties?”

Jane schools her features into her most beseeching expression, allows a lousy tear or two to fall down her cheek. She is wearing her nicest dress.

“I was only gone thirty minutes – I didn’t take lunch today. But I’m so sorry, Joan, really I am, and it won’t happen again, I promise.”

“It better not,” says Joan. There’s a deafening silence in which Jane swears she can hear the pulse of blood in her veins. She wants to push back, to say _no._ Joan Holloway is so obvious.

“There’s one left. Here, you take it. Peace offering,” says Jane evenly, walking over to her. She’s so angry she can barely think straight and Joan is blocking the doorway, standing frustratingly still. Joan’s eyes flash a steely, dangerous blue. She rips the pastry from Jane’s hand and throws it on the floor; jam filling splattering against the tile.

“I can fire you, you know.”

Her voice is low and dangerous, and Jane meets her eyes, fierce and petulant. She’s standing close enough to smell the spiciness of Joan’s perfume; her skin is smooth and creamy and perfect, and she had thought Joan was the sort of woman to smell like flowers, and Jane can’t _stand_ her.

Jane pushes right back against that red, imposing mouth, welcoming the sting of those wolf-teeth biting heavily into her bottom lip, and then she’s firmly pressing her thigh between Joan’s legs, thrilling to the delicate, deliberate hitch in her breathing.  _Don’t step on my toes. This is how it is._

She steps back.

“I know you can,” Jane says.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Oops, my hands slipped and this came out. I always had a soft spot for Jane. Mad Men needs more femslash! *slams fist*


End file.
